


Reflections

by Flutterpony



Category: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Genre: Aunt-Niece Relationship, F/F, Gen, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Molestation, Implied/Referenced Underage Relationship(s), Introspection, Pedophilia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27658436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flutterpony/pseuds/Flutterpony
Summary: Twilight speaks to herself magically across alternate realities about taboo love and relationships.
Kudos: 7
Collections: Foalcon: Foal romance shipping fluff and (R34) clop





	Reflections

“You don’t really want to talk to me,” the mirror mare noted sadly.

Twilight wrestled mentally with what felt like an accusation. “Why should I?”

“If you’re not sure why, then are you really sure why not?”

“This isn’t a singular opportunity. This is a contrived, repeatable incident with little intellectual value,” Twilight looked back at her counterpart quizzically despite her reluctance.

“The burden is on me to explain why, I understand,” Twilight’s mirror version acknowledged, “because I _do_ really want to talk to you.”

The question needn’t be asked, but Twilight did anyway to disrupt her own discomfort as silence settled between them. “Why?”

Mirror Twilight sighed. “This aspect of ponies—of creatures—is a reality you and I both have to deal with. While yes, you can spend your energy on more pressing issues … are those issues really more pressing if the lives of innocent creatures hang on whether or not some understanding can be reached, some patience given to handling the matter?” Mirror Twilight answered her own question. “Maybe. And you’d still rather not. So … what would it take to make this conversation worth having?”

“Right now … it’s the only conversation I seem to be _having_. Chance and circumstance compels me to be here, and I’ve deigned to respond, but I could be off somewhere else,” Twilight contemplated, “yet … you consider my willingness key to continuing.” Concern knitted the mare’s brow.

“Yes …. I hope you’ll be the surrogate opponent I need in a safe environment.”

“I have no choice right now, but you want me to have a choice so that you’ll feel more validated if I concede,” Twilight reasoned with herself.

“So … what would it take to make this conversation worth having?” Mirror Twilight repeated.

“Is compulsion not a valid answer?” Twilight smirked sardonically. “Well, I understand it’s not ideal, but here I am anyway, right?”

“Please!” Mirror Twilight begged.

“You’re desperate, but …,” Twilight actually looked sad, seeing her counterpart’s plight, “I don’t know if even your desperation would convince me otherwise to talk to you about _this_ of all things. I suppose if I were summoned by social obligation or duty, that would make talking to you worthwhile, but what are you willing to risk in order for that to happen, and how would you avoid risks that could ruin your friendships?” Twilight mused. “As much as I’d love for there to be thousands of me to investigate every … worthy cause,” she hesitated, but offered her counterpart the benefit of the doubt, “I’m just one pony with things better to spend my energy on. I know this sounds harsh, but it’s a reality I don’t think I can change.” Twilight’s tone was soft but unapologetic, always least forgiving of herself.

“I’m … desperate enough to take certain risks.” Mirror Twilight offered. “I may only do it anonymously at first, but I’d put out fliers around the city until I drew enough attention.”

“Yes, but would that constrain anycreature to have this particular conversation?” Twilight countered.

“With enough public attention and an anonymous bulletin, just maybe,” mirror Twilight imagined.

“I think you’d get your wish with some other creature, but you’d likely have to appeal to my personal sense of empathy or responsibility for me to engage. I guess that could work, yes,” Twilight conceded. “You’d be sifting through a lot of angry responses from others to reach a few open minded readers, but, yes.”

“A daunting task … but if it’s the only alternative, maybe I’d manage … especially with some help,” mirror Twilight considered.

“Well, then,” Twilight smiled genuinely, “I’m glad—or at least satisfied we might have reason to chat beside present circumstances. What is it you’re hoping to accomplish by hypothetically flooding the public with fliers, or summoning me here?”

“In reality, I have a more valuable target audience as well, but addressing the majority opinion is unavoidable, and we have to put ourselves in their horseshoes.”

“Naturally,” Twilight agreed. “So here I am,” she represented.

Mirror Twilight nodded. “I only hope to accomplish change for the better. Do you really doubt that lives are at stake?”

Twilight sighed under the weight of the question and wondered if avoidance still wasn’t possible. One way or another, she knew it didn’t matter. If she tried to avoid it, her mirror counterpart was determined to make it her business. “I don’t doubt it, but you already know it’s not something I want to think about. Will you explain what kind of improvement you’re hoping for?”

Mirror Twilight nodded. “Before I do, will you help me understand what kind of change you’d expect somepony like me, or pedosexuals … broadly speaking, to hope for?” The mirror mare lowered her chin meekly but looked up regardless, pleadingly.

“You,” stress lined Twilight’s pondering eyes, “may be a special case, depending on how similar you are to me, but as I say that, I realize my own hubris.” Twilight drew and exhaled a breath to focus. “I guess you want me to reconsider whether the motivations I expect from pedophiles are legitimate, so … I’d guess you want looser or lighter penalties and reformed definitions of legal consent.”

“You’re not wrong, but these aren’t the primary concern of most activists. At least,” mirror Twilight clarified, “the few activists that persist openly in spite of the odds, want only for their reality to be one less filled with fear, more filled with patient understanding. Keeping the laws you mentioned the same is acceptable to many of these, but the stigma—the sheer hatred that’s socially allowed, even encouraged in open public discourse—is a plague to _every_ creature affected, not least the foals who are, on every front, abused.”

“I have no doubt hatred leads to broken relationships. I imagine anypony willing to speak out must do so with effort to make their side look appealing, but that doesn’t change what I imagine _most_ pedophiles actually want,” Twilight rebutted. “What activists say and what most pedophiles want is not the same.”

“Again, you’re not wrong,” mirror Twilight restated, “and it seems to the fearful a slippery slope to suggest that any change, even the less controversial, should favor the oppressed in this case, considering the impact of foal sexual abuse, but the majority of the oppressed are _not_ abusers—haven’t even touched a foal. Still, that majority is unwilling or unable to advocate for themselves due to the pride of … small ponies who wish for others to be even smaller. They won’t advocate for themselves because of the danger they’d face standing up to ponies who draw on public misconceptions to rally witch hunts for pedophiles.

“What makes you so willing while others aren’t to speak up?” Twilight questioned.

“ _Painful_ experience,” mirror Twilight answered. “Realizing I have more to lose, less to keep or gain, in staying silent than in speaking up, even though I might … _do_ struggle and am hated for it.” Mirror Twilight broke eye contact with herself self consciously. “Isolation drove me to make mistakes that hurt me and Flurry Heart and our family.”

“And speaking out has helped?” Twilight queried.

“It has, both in not feeling so isolated and in driving my focus away from myself. Back when it happened, I was alone, and in moments of weakness, the only pony I thought could fill that loneliness was Flurry heart.”

“Why didn’t you—” Twilight was clearly disturbed by the admission of what happened “— _did_ you try getting professional help?”

Mirror Twilight nodded. “It was scary, especially when help was limited and I began by opening up to a group of ponies who didn’t really relate.” Mirror Twilight was crestfallen. “It was better than nothing, but the connections were too limited to make a difference with Flurry.

“Later … after I touched her—Flurry Heart—” shame rang in her niece’s name “—I tried again with reform groups for foal sexual offenders. They were all present by royal decree except me. I had escaped the legal penalties despite Shining and Cadence finding out, but I learned from first-hoof perspectives what others’ lives were like who weren’t so lucky: no gainful employment or secure home, separated from most everypony they cared about, and accountable to an officer who determined almost on impulse whether they were in keeping with the terms of their parole. It drove me further from professional help than the frightening but otherwise decent experiences I’d had before.” Mirror Twilight ventured a short glance up at herself.

Twilight looked on, pained and disgusted, but unavoidably sympathetic toward her mirror self. “It seems like you really tried. Was there anything else you could have done?”

Mirror Twilight grimaced. “I was … offered treatment in a program to change my sexuality. It was reputable, unlike many, but I … didn’t accept the treatment.”

Twilight looked critically at her mirror self, but said nothing.

“I chose what I believed would effect greater happiness instead. I chose self acceptance, but for the price of never knowing whether the cure would have worked. This was an opportunity that only came after the incidents with Flurry Heart, though.”

“What do you suppose I can do for you or others like you?” Twilight attempted to cut to the chase.

“I don’t expect you to accept what I’ve chosen, but you could protect ponies from more of the mistakes I’ve seen through my experiences. Broken homes, fractured friends and families, foals brought up to believe they’re lesser for the mistakes made in their upbringing, and ponies of all ages lost forever to fear and shame.” Mirror Twilight’s focus was distant, her brow both sad and afraid, haunted by memories.

“For me personally, well …,” the mirror mare hesitated, “I appreciate your willingness to hear me so far … but I need your perspective on something.”

Twilight nodded her assent. She waited for her mirror self to clarify.

“It’s difficult to know where to start examining our differences. One key attribute seems to have made such a difference in our focus—our life focus,” mirror Twilight began. “Part of me thinks …. I try to tell myself it’s irrelevant, but I know I’ll never stop wondering … because I’ve been obsessed for so long—fought the obsession for so long …. Could _you_ … ever be convinced that Flurry and I belong together this way … while she’s so young and for as long as she might decide to stay with me …? And what about other foals with mares and stallions who love them, both … sexually and maternally?”

Twilight breathed deep and exhaled, considering. “I can tell our worlds are almost identical, but I don’t know truly how different you and I are. I’d _never_ want to be with Flurry Heart that way, at least, not unless our lives depended on it, maybe. But setting aside whether you have abusive tendencies outside of, well …. You’re asking me to consider whether sex for a foal like Flurry Heart could be anything but abusive. Is that right?”

Mirror Twilight nodded. “For starters, yes.”

“I suppose you’ve done research. What have you learned?” Twilight countered.

“I haven’t had much success, but the restricted section in Canterlot leads me to believe there’s no reasonably identifiable harm in foal sexual relationships where risk factors are accounted for.”

“Why are you still resistant to the idea?” Twilight suspected a few reasons, but wouldn’t assume.

“… No reason.” Mirror Twilight’s answer hung between them, unanticipated by her counterpart. The mirror mare’s eyes reflected despair that Twilight suddenly began to understand and felt unexpectedly inadequate to handle. “You’re my last hope for a reason … to …,” mirror Twilight trembled, “to suffer longer … to keep telling myself _not_ Flurry Heart and … _not_ any other foal should fill the void.” Her eyes sparkled with emotion.

“If that one key attribute is really all that separates us, then …,” Twilight struggled earnestly, “why do you doubt I’ll give anything but the same answer you’ve come to?”

“I guess … I don’t know—” mirror Twilight sniffled “—but I’ve been divided for so long that I doubt my own judgment. Any pony of reason should doubt herself, but … cognitive dissonance eventually overwhelms the most thorough—the most diligent student of truth.” A tear rolled down mirror Twilight’s cheek.

Twilight’s eyes sparkled sympathetically in return. “I can’t offer you much in the way of an answer, I’m afraid, but …,” Twilight placed her hoof on her mirror self’s shoulder, “whether or not Flurry or some other foal should be considered capable of handling anything like what you’ve wished for … by waiting and struggling to see through every bias, _including_ your own,” Twilight emphasized, her eyes pained but convinced, “you’re something greater to Flurry Heart—to the foals and creatures of our worlds—than biology or any force of will outside your own would make you.” Twilight hugged her self firmly. “In spite of your flaws, Twilight Sparkle, you’re Flurry’s hero.”

Twilight and Twilight wept in each other’s arms as the magic that summoned them quietly filled the featureless void that held them. In a mist of radiant gold, it softly surrounded both, uniting their forms and leaving one mare behind, alone.


End file.
